


Jusjoka

by ChancellorGriffin



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abby Gets a Sword, Blood, Blood Kink, Cage Fights, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual Violence, F/M, Fight Sex, Fighting Kink, Knifeplay, Rough Sex, Swordfighting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-04-24 00:30:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19162126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChancellorGriffin/pseuds/ChancellorGriffin
Summary: Over six years in the bunker, Marcus and Abby become warriors for Blodreina, unlocking an avalanche of dark and unsettling desires.





	1. Year One

**Author's Note:**

> From the 2019 Kabby Kink Meme - https://kabbykinkmeme.livejournal.com/1042.html?thread=267026#t267026
> 
> PROMPT: "even darker bunker au where kane is in the ring for idk regular crime and Abby isn’t locked away so she watches him fight and it turns her on so much she’s overwhelmed by it. they fuck in the locker room right after he wins, it’s brutal and hot and hard and they’re covered in blood and desperately in love."
> 
> CW for lots of eroticized violence (always consensual between Kane and Abby, a little bit dubcon when they're in the fighting pits, in a sex-pollen-ish, "fighting makes them hot for each other and sometimes it gets out of control" kind of way, where they're turned on by everything and everyone but they only fuck each other). 
> 
> There's one explicit death (of an original, non-canon character) and some gruesome aftermath. The prompt above says it all, really.
> 
> Also, there's a little bit of a bunker retcon here, as it fit the story better to make The Dark Year their 4th year underground (I think in canon it was like the 2nd).
> 
> All chapter titles taken from "Macbeth."

**i. _fair is foul and foul is fair_**

The first time it happens, there isn’t any blood.

She’s in Cadogan’s office, inventorying medical supplies. It isn’t difficult work, merely tedious, so at first she doesn’t mind the clanging weapons from the atrium floor below; Octavia and Miller spar nearly every afternoon, and it’s difficult to begrudge their young leader her few recreational pastimes.

But they’re _really_ going at it today, sword crashing against sword with unusually brutal force, until Abby finally sighs, rubs her temples, and rises from the desk to ask them, in her best Exasperated Mom Voice, exactly how much longer they think they’re going to be.

But when she opens the door and steps onto the landing, her heart stops.

It isn’t Nate swinging a Grounder sword at Octavia.

It’s Marcus.

Abby grips the cool metal railing for balance, her whole body feeling strange and shivery.

She has never really seen Marcus fight. At Camp Jaha, she watched him train soldiers, shooting at tree trunks and wooden posts. He has carried a sidearm all his adult life, and even brandished it from time to time, to break up riots and such. But she has never seen him wield a weapon with deliberate force, until now.

They’re elegant together, somehow, Marcus and Octavia. Like partners in a brutal, violent dance. It’s training only, she can see the girl giving him notes, reminding him to adjust his stance or his grip; but there's a primal heat to it that captivates her, and she can’t tear her eyes away.

When Octavia swings her blade in a wide circle, as though aiming to sever his head from his neck, Abby inhales sharply, cold with panic. When Marcus ducks elegantly and angles his own blade low, gently nicking her calf to draw first blood, Abby's cunt clenches hot and hard between her legs, which feels so _uncivilized_ she hates herself for it.

But it doesn't stop.

Everything Marcus does with his powerful body is charged with erotic force. By the time they’ve moved from shortswords to a pair of metal quarterstaffs longer than he is tall, her threadbare cotton shorts are soaked. This bout is even louder than the swords, but she’s miles past caring. How can she mind the noise, when Octavia’s staff whirls swiftly to knock Marcus off his feet and he dodges with military precision, catching the girl off-guard until she’s pinned against the concrete, seven feet of steel pipe imprisoning her between himself and the wall?

They’re breathless, soaked in sweat. Octavia’s breasts are heaving. Marcus’ shirt is clinging to his skin.

Abby's entire body is aflame with sensation. She can feel the cups of her bra against her peaked nipples, the seam of her cotton shorts pressed into her cunt. Friction everywhere, but not enough.

Do they feel it? This hot, raw, animal thing? Do they want to rip each other’s clothes off, the way she wants to rip off theirs?

They must. How can they not?

How can a force so powerful be affecting only her?

* * * * * * * * * *

After the bout, Octavia returns to her own quarters to bathe and change. Marcus makes his way into the weapons locker just off the atrium.

Abby follows.

“Hey,” he says warmly, as he turns towards the door at the sound of her footsteps, dark eyes lighting up when he sees her enter the room. “Sorry, were we being too loud? I told Octavia you were working, but –"

He never finishes his sentence.

Her lips crash into his, her hands clutch the waistband of his jeans, and she pulls his body roughly against hers, hard enough to make him slam her against the wall, hungry in a way she's never been before.

 _“Abby,”_ he gasps breathlessly, a little shaken, once she lets his mouth go. “I’m a mess, love, let me shower first and meet you upstairs –"

“I need you like this,” she whispers. “Just like this. Like you were in the ring. I want _that_ Marcus to fuck me.”

He stares down at her, eyes wide, and then something dark passes through them, and she _watches_ it happen, watches the wall between man and beast come crashing down. He _growls_ as he shoves her back against the cold metal wall, hands tearing open first her jeans, then his own, biting sharp kisses into her neck as she yanks at his thick black hair. He enters her in one savage thrust, and she realizes what it means that he needed no time to be ready.

Fighting makes his cock hard, the same way it soaked her cunt.

It rouses the animal in both of them.

He fucks her into the cold metal wall, hot and violent and perfect, as her fingernails dig like talons into the sweat-stained back of his gray shirt.

They come at the same time.

* * *

**ii. _stars, hide your fires – let not light see my black and deep desires_**

The whole thing begins as a game, nothing more than a way to pass the time.

Someone makes a joke at dinner, idly speculating as to whether Gaia or Indra would win in a fight.  
  
A little over half the room throws in their vote for Gaia – including Indra, to everyone’s amusement. Gaia, after all, is younger, has seen fewer injuries in battle, and her knees and back are at their strongest. But a noisy and contrary contingent voices their support for Indra, including both Marcus and Abby. (Octavia politely abstains, but her wry grin makes her allegiance clear.) Indra may be older, their argument goes, but she has also been a warrior all her life, a claim Gaia cannot make, and there is a great deal that only a battlefield can teach you. How could Indra be defeated by someone Indra trained herself?  
  
In the end, with Octavia’s blessing, it's clear that the only way to definitively answer the question is with a live demonstration.  
  
A flurry of wagers change hands – moonshine rations, books, weapons, tools, anything worth trading. Opinions are amusingly heated and rigidly fixed, and the crowd which gathers in the atrium is boisterous with glee.  
  
Octavia sets the rules: shortswords only, the bout ends at first blood, wounds to the head or torso are disqualifying, anyone in the crowd who interferes in any way except by cheering will be thrown out.  
  
Then she steps out of the ring, gives the signal, and the game begins.  
  
Abby feels her body begin to flush with warmth again, watching the two women thrust and parry, their footwork light and quick. It’s beautiful to watch.

 _They_ are beautiful.

Rippling arm and back and shoulder muscles. Sweat-gleamed, luminous dark skin. Scars everywhere. Battle-hardened bodies, electric with power . . .

_Goddammit, Abby._

Her cheeks are hot, and her cunt is soaked, and when she turns her head to where Marcus stands beside her in the crowd, flickering her eyes downward she can see the front of his jeans begin to swell. “I’d like to watch you fight Indra,” she whispers, so low only he can hear her, and she can feel her own nipples tighten into sharp little peaks at the image.  
  
He gives a low chuckle. “I wouldn’t make it out of the ring alive.”  
  
“I’d think of a way to revive you,” she murmurs. "The way I did after you fought Octavia."

Marcus swallows hard.  
  
“It seems we’re both a little more . . . primitive than we knew,” he confesses softly. “I didn’t expect it to make me feel this way either.”  
  
“We can’t tell anyone.”  
  
“Oh, God, no.” His quiet voice is horrified. “Our reputations would never recover.”  
  
“We’re people of science.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“You’re a diplomat. I’m a doctor. We don’t solve problems with violence.”  
  
“That’s not who we are.”  
  
“Not who we are at all.”  
  
By the time Indra wins the bout, twenty minutes later, Marcus has Abby bent over Cadogan’s desk, cock driving into her over and over while she bites back her screams.  


* * * * * * * * * *

“You two missed the end of the fight,” Niylah says at breakfast, “where did you go?”  
  
“Just up to the office,” Abby says, perfectly truthfully. “We had . . . something important to finish.”  
  
“It was a great performance,” Niylah says, smiling. “Very exciting, don't you think?”  
  
“Surprisingly so,” Marcus agrees, taking a bite of his food, and then neither he nor Abby can look at each other the rest of the meal.


	2. Year Two

iii **: _I dare do all that may become a man_**

By their second year in the bunker, it’s a biweekly event.

Every Wednesday and Friday after dinner, Octavia calls for volunteers in the ring. Wagering is allowed, as long as it isn’t disruptive; it’s still only entertainment, a way to pass the time, a thrilling escape from the monotonous gray sameness of their days.

Slowly, a cohort of elite fighters emerges, who become known as the Champions. When there are no volunteers, the Champions fight each other – a scenario the crowd tends to prefer, as these are the warriors who put on the most exciting show.

Marcus is one of the best.

Gradually, his body begins to change. The comforting softness of his belly she loved so much the first time she curled up against his naked flesh vanishes, replaced by an abdomen as solid as a wall. His arms, his legs, his back become sharper, more defined. When he fights shirtless, Abby needs something to hold onto so she doesn’t lose her balance, dizzy with waves of violent animal desire, riveted by the ripple and flex of every muscle and sinew.

The night Octavia first changes the rules on them, Marcus is the scheduled Champion. There are no volunteers tonight, so he has planned to ask Nate, whose training has also advanced in leaps and bounds, to partner him. Nate is more agile, but Marcus is bigger, and they’ve proved a fairly even match.

Instead, Octavia announces that Marcus will be fighting a brawny Sangedakru warrior who has never once volunteered for the ring.

“I don't feel right about this,” Marcus says in a low voice, pulling her aside. “You can't force someone who doesn’t want to fight. It’s only a game, Octavia. We don’t really want anyone to get hurt.”

“He started a riot in the Azgeda dormitory,” she explains. “It took five people to break it up. Abby has been setting broken arms and legs all afternoon.”

Marcus did not know this.

He looks over at the warrior. His face is pale and tight and cruel. Marcus knows him only slightly, and cannot immediately recollect his name, but the fact that he was causing trouble doesn’t come as a surprise.

“If he wants to fight so damn bad,” says Octavia reasonably, “then he can fight fairly. In the ring, against an equal, with witnesses. But I can’t allow him to be starting riots over a damn bottle of moonshine. There are too many of us living in too close quarters for that, Kane.”

He thinks it over, then nods. “All right,” he concedes. “That seems like a fair punishment. As long as he doesn't destroy me.”

“He’s bigger than you, and he’s been a warrior longer, but you’re better,” she advises. “He’s weak on the left and you have better reflexes. Don’t hurt him too badly, just embarrass him. Knock him on his ass in front of his buddies, and maybe he’ll think twice about causing trouble next time.”

Marcus nods. “All right, but let’s not make a habit of this. Better for everyone if we stick to volunteers in the future.”

“Obviously,” she agrees, smiling wryly. “Now go be my Champion. Don’t let me down.”

And he doesn’t.

The Sangedakru fighter is burly and pissed, his pride badly bruised by being forced to battle with one of the weaklings from Skaikru, and it doesn’t help that he’s losing. The usual gleeful hubbub surrounding the atrium takes on a different tone, little by little, soured by ugly jeering from those Grounders who still haven’t assimilated into Wonkru, and are perfectly willing to let old grudges bubble up to the surface if the chance to mock a former enemy presents itself.

_“Kwelen!”_ taunts a sudden voice from the sidelines, and _“Branwoda!”_ from another. Then someone from up high on the landing shouts _“Jomp em op, Skaigona!”_ , and the whole crowd takes it up as a giddy chant.

Something snaps inside the warrior facing Marcus in the ring, a kind of haze darkening his eyes, his blade slashing blindly, and Marcus realizes with a sudden surge of adrenaline-laced panic that this isn’t a game to his opponent anymore.

If he isn’t careful, if Octavia isn’t vigilant, if he lets his guard down for even a second – he could die.

_Okay, Marcus,_ he thinks to himself, imagining Indra’s cool, focused voice in his mind. _This is not a drill. This is a battle. You are fighting for your life._

The blade zooms back at him with wicked force. He sidesteps it but can’t get his balance quite right, and stumbles back into the wall, the huge mountain of a man advancing on him, sword drawn. His blade is not aiming at Kane's arms or legs, poised for a light scratch to indicate first blood and end the bout. No, he’s hoisting it over his head and swinging it at shoulder height.

He’s aiming, with wicked accuracy, to slice off Kane’s head.

Suddenly, through a momentary gap in the surging crowd, he sees Abby, eyes wide and dark, fixated on his, and he feels that rush of violent animal lust sweep through his body, stiffening his cock inside his jeans. He’ll need to fuck her after this, hard and fast and savage, and she’ll be screaming for it; he already knows her cunt is wet.

He wonders if he can make her come, just from watching.

He decides to try.

_“He’s weak on the left, and you have better reflexes.”_

Marcus drops to a crouch, the blade sailing harmlessly over his head, and swings his own sword for the other warrior’s ankles, blades vertical, coming from the left. It works. The flat of his shortsword makes contact, knocking the other man off balance, causing him to stumble backward and topple over. The crowd roars with hysterical amusement as the Sangedakru fighter falls on his ass and Kane rises back up to his full height, sweeping low with his blade to effortlessly disarm his opponent, the other man’s sword clattering harmlessly to the floor.

It’s when he moves in to draw first blood – just a small nick, on the shin, where the flesh will heal easily – that he’s caught off-guard.

There is, after all, a procedure to this, and Kane has followed it to the letter. Even Octavia, his leader, had to push hard to persuade him to bend the rules at all. And somehow he had expected – stupidly, he realizes now – that his opponent would surrender once defeated, like the rules say he must.

But he doesn’t.

He hisses in pain and rage as the blade etches a delicate line in his bare shin, and then his foot strikes upward, kicking Marcus low in the gut and bringing him down to the ground, and then before he knows it there’s a hulking body on top of his, choking the breath out of his lungs.

Hand-to-hand combat has never been Kane’s strength, even with an opponent matched to him in size. As hands close around his throat, he feels a thousand things at once. He’s terrified and angry and desperate and fighting for his life . . . and his cock is so hard it _aches._

Abby is watching this.

Abby’s cunt will be hot and wet right now, clenching fiercely with hunger and need as she stares at the two sweat-sheened bodies grappling on the cold cement floor.

Adrenaline surges through his body, and he manages to knee his opponent in the solar plexus, not enough to incapacitate but enough to annoy and distract him, giving Kane an opening to throw his weight to the side and flip the man onto his back, straddling him, pinning him to the ground.

The crowd erupts in frenzied cheers as Kane grips the man’s wrists, letting his full weight imprison the Sangedakru fighter, who is trapped as neatly as a turtle on its back. He writhes and struggles beneath Kane’s body, spitting furious obscenities in Trigedasleng, but Kane doesn’t hear them, because every desperate upward thrust of the man’s hips, as he strains fruitlessly to get free, only increases the delicious friction of their bodies rubbing together. Kane shifts his weight, grinding his iron-hard cock against the man’s thigh. To the crowd, it looks only like one man holding a struggling, flailing opponent pinned to the ground; but as he looks up, locking eyes with Abby as his hips move, he watches her cheeks flush and her shoulders tremble and her breath catch.

She comes, without a single touch, in a crowd of two hundred people, and no one knows it but him.

By the time Octavia fights her way through the surging crowd to pull the two men apart and corner the Sangedakru warrior, upbraiding him ferociously for cheating and informing him that he'll be back in the ring tomorrow until he learns to fight fair, Abby has already slipped unnoticed into the locker room and yanked down the zipper of her jeans, shivering against the wall as Marcus follows, bolting the door behind him.

“I came so hard,” she whispers fiercely into his ear as he backs her up against the metal lockers, plunging into her soaked cunt in one thrust. “Oh God, baby, watching you, that was . . .”  
  
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you watching.”  
  
“Oh God, Marcus, harder, I have to come again, I need –"  
  
“I know,” he growls into the soft flesh of her throat. “I know what you need. I saw it on your face. I saw you come, right there in front of me.”  
  
“I couldn’t help myself,” she pants as his hips crash into hers, “you’re so beautiful like that, you’re so beautiful when you’re fighting, I love this side of you . . .”  
  
_“Fuck,_ Abby,” he groans, lifting her thigh to open her cunt wider and push in as deep as he can go, bottoming out in her with an obscene slap of flesh on flesh. “I needed you so much.”  
  
“I know,” she croons tenderly, pulling his head down to rest on her shoulder, stroking his hair, “I saw how hard you were, baby, I saw what it did to you, I saw how badly you needed to fuck –"  
  
“Two minutes longer and I would have come on his thigh.”  
  
“I know. I know, baby. But I’m here. I’m right here. Give me all of it.” She kisses him, fierce and savage and desperate. “My warrior,” she whispers, something almost worshipful in her voice, as his cock slams into her so hard her whole body slams backward against the wall. “Fuck me like we’re in battle. Fuck me like you fought him.”  
  
So he does.  
  
They land hard on the cold ground, tangled up in hastily yanked-open jeans, hands clutching wildly at shoulders and hair. She lands on top of him, so he flips her onto her back, the same swift move he used on the fighter, except with one arm pillowed beneath her head to protect her from cracking her skull. Abby hisses with fierce pleasure as his body crushes hers, as he fucks her against the hard floor, grunting and gasping, until she comes with a wild little scream, only just muffled by the thick concrete walls of the bunker.  
  
“Come in me,” she whispers, reaching down between their bodies to pull his jeans lower off his hips, greedy for more of him, then freezes suddenly as she retracts her hand and sees a faint crimson smear. “His blood is on your clothes,” she says, voice shaky. “The cut on his leg, when you were on the floor –"  
  
Before he can stop himself, before he even knows what he's doing, Marcus takes her finger into his mouth and sucks it clean, then comes inside her with a violent roar, shuddering into stillness on top of her shaky body.  
  
They don’t mention the blood again. Not for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGEDASLENG
> 
> Kwelen = weak  
> Branwoda = idiot  
> Jomp em op = attack him  
> Skaigona = Sky Warrior


	3. Year Three

iv **: _it will have blood, they say - blood will have blood_**

The evolution of the Champions from performers to law enforcement happens so gradually that no one notices.

It begins fairly innocuously, thanks to the success of Kane’s fight with the Sangeda warrior; chastened by public humiliation, he has caused no trouble since. And so, from time to time, when violent crimes occur, Octavia repeats the tactic.

The crowds relish these bouts even more than watching the professionals fight each other. There’s a cruel glee in seeing wrongdoers receive their comeuppance in such a palpable way, and the shaming carries more weight if the Champions put on a bit of a show.

Indra and Gaia are the Champions from Trikru, while Kara Cooper and Marcus represent Skaikru. All four enjoy a privileged position in Octavia’s inner circle, and all begin with the best of intentions; they understand, even if the mob does not, why crimes against Wonkru are dangerous.

Still, as deep as Kane’s loyalty runs, he balks at the notion of becoming an executioner.

It’s not, he explains, that he doesn’t understand the impulse. Struggling to assimilate Azgeda into Wonkru is an ongoing headache. So when a drunken brawl ends with an Ice Nation warrior knocking out a Trikru warrior so hard that her head wound proves fatal, Octavia informs them that she hasn’t taken capital punishment off the table.

“They used injections of poison, back on Old Earth,” suggests Kara. “Quick and clean, and pretty humane, all things considered. Abby might know –"

“Abby isn’t a murderer either,” Kane interrupts her curtly. “End of discussion.”

“Azgeda murdered one of my people,” says Indra. “I do not give a damn if her death is humane.”

“We do have a brig,” Gaia points out. “And we’ve never used it, except to stash drunks overnight.”

“That’s true,” Kane agrees. “It wouldn’t take much to train a few proper prison guards for that purpose. Then no one has to die.”

“We already have the fighting pit,” says Octavia. “It seems as good a solution as any.”

All four of them turn to stare at her.

“Octavia,” says Marcus slowly, “you can’t be serious.”

“Why not? If she wins the bout, and draws first blood on a Champion, well, then she’s proven she’s worth keeping around, and hopefully the risk of death will teach her a lesson.”

“And if she loses?”

“Then we kill her,” says Indra. “To deter future troublemakers.”

Gaia shakes her head. “Using the fighting pits for discipline, and to maintain order, yes. But I do not believe we should use them to kill.”

“Then give me a better idea,” says Octavia. “I mean it. Anything.”

“What if we just . . . redefined what ‘first blood’ means, depending on who’s fighting?” suggests Kara. “For Champions, the same rules still apply. If we’re fighting a criminal, though, we have the right to – well – push a little harder.”

“Serious, but not lethal.” Gaia nods at this. “Pain is a great teacher. Perhaps even a better one than humiliation.”

Marcus hesitates. “Are we sure we’re comfortable with this precedent?”

“We’re talking about a handful of violent criminals,” says Kara. “This isn’t going to come up every day, Kane. These are extenuating circumstances.”

“You should fight her, Kane,” says Octavia. “The crowd loves you. And they’ll love you even more if they get to see you let yourself off the leash.”

Marcus wants to say no. He wants to listen to the voice in the back of his mind, screaming that they are navigating dangerous waters, that they do not want to open this door.

Then he imagines grappling with an Azgeda warrior on the cold floor, blood smeared all over his bare chest. Abby, standing on the sidelines, chest rising and falling, eyes dark with lust, watching him rut against the prisoner’s thigh until he’s hard enough to yank down the zipper of his jeans and pull Abby onto his iron-hard cock right then and there.

He imagines dragging her to the floor, into a pool of crimson, ripping off her shirt and smearing it on her bare breasts, then taking them into his mouth and sucking them clean.

“Of course,” he says evenly, “I’ll do it if you need me to.”

By the time he makes it back to their room, his iron-hard cock is leaking precum into the fabric of his shorts, and he comes almost as soon as he enters her.

* * *

**v: _screw your courage to the sticking-place_**

Marcus draws first blood on the Ice Nation criminal with tremendous restraint, forgoing the chance to lop off her hand for a clean pair of slashes down her palms. It’s painful, of course, she screams as he severs the tendons, so it makes good theatre; also, she can't hold a sword or make a fist for months, which was his only goal in the first place. To him, this is mercy.

To Octavia, it is prudence.

To Indra, it is not enough.

To Abby, waiting to lick the crimson stains left by the woman’s bloody hands off Kane's throat, it is intoxication.

But to Ice Nation, it is a declaration of war.

* * * * * *

The rumors begin almost immediately.

They whisper that the male _Skaigona_ demanded to fight her to slake his blood-lust for Azgeda. They whisper that the long-established rules suddenly changed with no warning when one of their own stepped into the ring against the bearded Sky Warrior, and that this is no coincidence. They whisper that he was a close friend – or sworn brother, or lover, or clansman, the story changes from telling to telling – of the monster called Pike. They whisper that he is Octavia’s father. They whisper that during the battle of Polis, he shot King Roan and left him for dead.

And when a minor outbreak of vomiting strikes the Azgeda dormitory (thanks to a group of teenagers who stole rotten fruit from the farm and dared each other to eat it), they whisper that the _fisa kom Skaikru,_ his lover, is trying to kill their children.

Octavia is restless, impatient, irritable. She knows what to do with an opponent who faces her openly, but she has no idea how to fight gossip and murmurings and sideways glances. A subtle hiss of rebellion is slithering through the bunker, but there’s nothing she can _do_ about it. There’s nothing to _fight._

That is, until the hospital riot.

* * * * *

Two important things happen, the day the fathers of the three Ice Nation pranksters (who were duly punished by their own stomachs for stealing bad fruit) crash into Med Bay with axes and knives, shouting that the _fisa kom Skaikru_ is a witch.

One, Octavia finally uses the brig – to keep her doctors safe until she decides what to do with the rebels.

Two, Miller insists that the doctors learn to fight.

At first, Jackson refuses absolutely, even though it took Miller firing three bullets into the floor to get the men to surrender. Jackson _hates_ guns. The moment the City of Light was shut down, and he opened his eyes to find himself and Abby pointing weapons at each other, he dropped the gun in his hand and never touched one again.

“It doesn’t have to be a firearm,” Miller points out, gesturing around them at the surgery. “There’s plenty of lethal shit in here you could use as a pinch.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not gonna make you kill anybody,” Miller chuckles, slinging his arm around him. “I’m just saying, someone comes in here to start some shit, I want to know my boyfriend can handle himself with a scalpel.”

Abby’s thoughts, meanwhile, run on very different lines.

She sees herself in the ring, sword in hand, naked, sparring with Marcus. They thrust and parry, each clang of metal reverberating like an iron bell inside her body, inside her cunt. Sticky wetness trails down her thighs, pooling on the floor. Marcus’ cock is fully erect, the ruddy purple head already weeping precum, the twin mounds beneath his shaft swollen and full. Abby’s sword swings high and knocks his out of his grip, clattering loudly to the red-smeared concrete, as she advances on her now-unarmed lover and backs him into the wall. “First blood,” she whispers, carving a tiny cross over his heart, and at the touch of her blade, he comes all over her, ribbons of white striping her naked body, coating her skin and her sword. He comes and comes, as she bends her head and presses her lips over the bloody cross and licks him clean until her mouth is dripping with crimson.

“Abby?” says Miller. “I said, are you interested?”

“Sure,” she says, not looking at either of them. “You’re right, Nathan, it’s a very good idea.”

* * * * * *

After dinner, Gaia knocks on her door.

Miller chose her for several reasons. Of all the fighters he trusts with a novice, the young Flamekeeper is the best match for Abby’s height; she also shares the doctor’s instinctive resistance to causing more damage than she has to. He isn’t trying to prep Jackson and Abby for the fighting pits; he just wants them to have some basic defensive skills, if the tension with Ice Nation keeps rising. Kane is likely to become a target, if this escalates, which means Abby is too.

Downstairs in the brig with Octavia, Kane knows none of this, until the moment he exits the stairwell into the atrium and sees Abby in the ring, holding a Grounder sword.

“Good,” says Gaia from the sidelines. “Now the same motion, but with only one hand.”

“It’s too heavy, I don’t have the balance down quite yet –"

“You will learn. For now, your muscles just need to adapt to the weight. Your sword hand does not know it is a sword hand yet.”

“That’s very poetic, Gaia,” says Abby wryly, pushing a sweaty lock of hair out of her face. “Can it learn soon? Because my shoulder is killing me.”

Gaia laughs. “Your muscles cannot reach their full range of motion in that jacket,” she observes dryly. “You are not dressed for fighting.”

Marcus feels his cock begin to strain violently against the zipper of his jeans as Abby sighs, sets down the sword, and removes first her jacket and corset, then her long-sleeved undershirt. Now clad only in a threadbare bra - barely sufficient to contain her lush breasts - she pulls an elastic from her pocket and knots her hair high and loose on her head, before picking up the sword again.

Marcus can’t breathe.

She never wears her hair up this high, he has never had a view like this of the perfect expanse of her back, the angular wings of her shoulderblades, the hollow at the back of her neck, the delicate notches of her spine, delicate trickles of sweat glittering down the soft flesh. She looks like a goddess.

“Again,” Gaia commands, and Abby begins to execute a careful series of motions, first with the sword in both hands, then only in her right.

Hidden in the shadows, Marcus silently unzips his jeans and lifts his cock free.

Abby swings high, then low. She feints left, then right. She holds the sword above her head and lowers it with a vicious slash.

Precum is already beading at his slit, and he slicks it up and down the shaft with a greedy fist.

“Good,” says Gaia, lifting her own blade. “Now with me.”

Their swords clash against each other in a harsh metallic symphony. Marcus’ movements speed up as theirs do, jerking his cock and biting back aching groans as Abby dances with Gaia, slowly growing more sure of herself, meeting the Flamekeeper’s every thrust with her own. The muscles of her arms are sheened with sweat from the exertion, rippling as she swings the blade in a wide arc overhead.

“Very good,” says Gaia. “Now, without the memorized pattern. Watch me to predict my next move, and counter it.”

Right away, he can tell the girl is impressed by her student’s progress. She moves in slow motion, to allow Abby to keep pace, but she is not holding back her force. Abby predicts each move and gracefully swings her blade to meet it, keeping Gaia carefully at bay, never once knocked off guard.

Marcus’ cock is hot and heavy in his hand, the wet slicking noises so obscenely loud he’s surprised the women don’t turn around. He teases the underside of the ridge with his finger, like Abby always does with her tongue, and feels his whole body shudder.

When Abby pivots from defense to offense, ducking under Gaia’s blow and swiftly giving her a light tap between the breasts with the flat of her blade and playfully announcing “first blood,” Marcus cock bursts. He comes all over the floor, choking back his groans, the sight of Abby victorious in battle more than his body can take.

After, he scrubs at the mess on the floor with his shoe, to spread it out and let it dry before anyone can tell what it is. Then he tucks himself back into his jeans and strides into the light just as Abby is picking up her clothes.

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” he says, smiling. “Quite an impressive first lesson.”

“She has great potential,” says Gaia.

“Gaia is overselling it,” Abby demurs, laughing.

“No,” says Marcus, his eyes hot and full of meaning as they bore into hers. “I enjoyed watching you.”

* * * * *

Back in their room, he yanks her jeans down and nuzzles into her cunt so hard she almost screams, and stays there until she’s come so many times she can’t move anymore. Then he undresses her tenderly, worshipfully, kissing and licking her body everywhere, burying his mouth in her stomach, her throat, her breasts, before climbing naked into the bed beside her and blanketing her small body with his own.

“I loved watching you fight,” he confesses in a guilty murmur, “but I don’t want you to _have_ to fight. I want to be the thing that keeps you safe.”

“You are, Marcus. You always are.”

“That riot this afternoon, Abby –"

“They’re locked up, Indra has guards watching them, it’s going to be all right. I’m not afraid of them.”

“It isn’t just three men, Abby.”

She kisses him. “I know.”

“I want to be a wall between you and the world,” he whispers, caressing the still-damp tendrils of hair around her face. “I want to keep you safe in my arms every minute of the day. But if I can’t, then I want to know that you can protect yourself. I trust Gaia. She’s a good teacher.” He kisses her mouth. “Does it make you feel safer, to know you can hold a sword?”

Abby gives a light shiver, and Marcus realizes that despite three violent orgasms, she’s still aroused again almost immediately by the memory.

“It makes me feel . . . _powerful,”_ she whispers, biting her lip, almost as though it’s shameful. “I liked the way it made my body feel.”

“You were so beautiful,” he says, feeling his cock already beginning to swell back to life where it presses against her belly. “Like a Valkyrie. Like Artemis. Like an avenging angel.”

“Stop,” she laughs, blushing, embarrassed.

“I’m telling the truth,” he whispers. “Abby, I wanted to fuck you so badly . . . I came so hard, when you drew first blood on Gaia.”

Her eyes widen. “You did?” she whispers. "You made yourself come, while you watched me fight?"

He nods, pressing a kiss against her mouth. “I love you like this,” he tells her, voice shattered with lust. “I love you with a sword in your hand. I love you in the fighting ring. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Abby reaches down to find his cock, stiffening rapidly, and guides it between her thighs. “Fuck me like you wanted to then,” she orders him breathlessly, fisting his hair and drawing his head down to bite sharp little kisses into her neck. “Fill me. Give me everything you wasted before."

“Abby,” he groans brokenly, and plunges inside, ready to pin her to the mattress, ready to shatter her with force. But she hooks one leg over his, pulling him deeper, and tugs at his hair until his scalp begins to burn, and then – stunningly – she flips him over, holding his cock inside her as she pushes him down into the pillows.

Marcus growls low in the back of his throat, his hands tightening on Abby’s back – one palming her ass, the other cupping her neck – and rolls them over again. And then they’re off, it’s nothing but scratching and hissing and biting and wrestling, fingers digging into skin and yanking at hair, hips slamming into each other over and over, as they tangle in the sheets, brutal and fierce and perfect, until finally they come in unison with a pair of choked, delirious cries, and collapse in sweat-sheened exhaustion to fall into immediate sleep.

* * *

**vi: _will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?_**

The night that everything changes, Abby misses the fight.

She was up until four a.m. with an emergency C-section, and it’s Kara’s night in the ring anyway, so she goes upstairs to bed right after dinner and sleeps through all of it, until the minute he walks through the door.

“Abby,” he croaks out, and she sits up in bed to see him standing in the doorway, his face blank and numb and shattered. “Abby, she’s dead. I’ve killed her. I _killed_ someone.”

She blinks, dazed, as her eyes adjust to the darkness, and then she sees it.

Marcus is nearly naked, and his entire body is drenched in blood.

* * * * *

The story comes together later, piece by piece.

Zora's hands have healed, but her clan still has not forgiven Markus kom Skaikru. The rules of the fighting pit change only for Azgeda, they whisper. They open a prison, only for Azgeda. Skaikru singles out Azgeda for punishment, then cries “unity” when Azgeda strikes back.

_Always,_ they seethe, _it is we who pay the unjust price. Always from the friend of Pike, the bearded man standing at Octavia’s side._

_Life would be much better for Azgeda, if the Skaigona were gone._

Kane and Octavia have gone to visit their trio of Ice Nation prisoners and explain the terms of their sentence. One month behind bars. Two meals a day, water but no alcohol. Immediate family members only, no other visitors. For a second infraction, the penalty period will double. For a third, the sentence will be a year. They put it to the council this morning, and the champions from eleven of the twelve clans voted unanimously that this was a fair punishment (Azgeda, predictably, walked out of the meeting) and agreed to codify it into law. From now on, violent disturbances from any clan will be met with the same.

The warriors in the prison cell, however, are not impressed.

“Why should we believe you, when you tell us Trikru or Skaikru will be punished the same?” one of them snarls. “These are just words. Always it is Azgeda you punish first.”

“There is no more Azgeda or Skaikru,” Marcus tells him, raising his hands in an open gesture of entreaty. “There is only Wonkru. It has been almost four years. We have to let the old ways go.”

“Then why is Azgeda blamed for all conflict?”

“You’re only blamed for the conflicts you _cause,_ dammit!” he retorts furiously.

“Kane carries out my orders,” says Octavia. “If you quarrel with him, you quarrel with me.”

“Kane was a friend of Pike,” scowls one of the men. “Azgeda has not forgotten.”

“And I killed Pike,” says Octavia evenly. “Justice was done.”

The man snorts derisively. “You killed him to avenge your Trikru lover,” he says sourly. “Not for Azgeda. No blood has been spilled by Skaikru to avenge us.”

“Are we really back to this?” Marcus fires back angrily. “ _Jus drein, jus daun_ all over again? Fine, then, we should be even. Abby lost a patient because of Zora’s drunken brawling; she couldn’t repair the fractures to Teren’s skull. A woman _died._ I took first blood from Zora, but left her alive. Are you saying you would rather I bashed her skull in too?” He steps closer to the man. “We’re all that’s left of the human race,” he says. “It shouldn’t be like this. One people, like Octavia said. That’s what we’re trying to build here.”

The Ice Nation leader stares him down, cold blue eyes appraising Marcus with brutal scorn. “You think you are better than us, with your _skai tek_ and your talk of peace,” he murmurs softly. “You think you are more _civilized._ But I have seen you fight.” His eyes flicker down toward Kane’s cock, and back up again. “You are the man of science, and I am the barbarian, as you say; yet you are the one, _Skaigona,_ whose blood runs hot in battle. I have lived among warriors my entire life. I know a _jusjoka_ when I see one.”

Marcus has never heard this insult before, but he knows the word “blood” and he knows the word “fuck,” and a flush sweeps over his face as Octavia turns and stares at him. Her cheeks are hot and red too.

Neither of them can look at each other for the rest of the day.

* * * * * *

Kara is warming up in the ring, a noisy crowd already gathered. Marcus walks over with Octavia, but has no plans to stay and watch; Abby is already upstairs, asleep, and he intends to join her. He exchanges a brief handclasp with Kara and wishes her luck, then turns to make his way up the ramp, when a harsh voice rings out from the center of the ring.

_“Skaigona!”_

He turns back, as the locker room door swings closed behind her.

The other fighter is Zora.

The atrium falls quiet as she steps into the light, ignoring Kara altogether, and stares up at Marcus, cold fury on her face.

She’s a beautiful woman – powerfully-built, much bigger than Kara, with golden skin and flaming red hair. She is wearing leather gauntlets on her hands, and very little clothing. A cropped leather halter exposes her midriff and the tops of her breasts. She wears loose linen breeches which fall just to the middle of her thigh. This is one of the new rules: criminals no longer receive armor. The more flesh they bare, the more visible their wounds, which Octavia hopes will act as a deterrent. Champions are permitted a bit more protection; Kara has thick leather breeches with metal plates on the calf and thigh, a breastplate, and metal cuffs on her wrists, preventing her opponent from hitting an organ or a major artery if they happen to draw first blood.

Marcus thinks about Kara and Zora grappling on the floor, of breasts pressed against breasts, of blood-streaked hands yanking at hair, and he thinks about Abby standing beside him, watching, about the way her breath would catch as arousal swept through her body, and he thinks about how good it would feel to enter her from behind and bite hard kisses into the back of her neck as they watched the fight together.

Then he thinks about the men in the brig downstairs, and the word they called him, and the fact that Octavia knew what it meant, and the way she couldn't meet his eyes anymore, like she was ashamed of him.

He _is_ a civilized man, dammit. He isn’t an animal. His life is more than fighting and fucking. This is not who he is.

With every ounce of strength in his body, he pushes the hot red waves of lust back down, and descends the spiral ramp back to the ring.

“You,” Zora hisses. “You are the one I want.”

“I’m not fighting today,” he tells her coldly. “Kara is.”

“I do not want her.”

“Well, that’s not really your choice,” he says flatly. “There’s a schedule. It’s posted on the wall. You can read.”

“You refuse to fight me? You will walk away, like a coward?”

“No,” he retorts, “I will walk away like a man who isn’t scheduled to fight again until next week. You can volunteer again then.”

Octavia moves closer to his side. "She isn't a volunteer," she tells Kane in a low voice, beckoning Kara over to join the conference. “She was caught with a concealed weapon and confessed to a planned assassination attempt.”

“Of who?” he asks, heart pounding.

Zora overhears this, and laughs. “You will fight me after all, I think, _Skaigona,”_ she says. “You will not walk away from the ring.”

Marcus grips Octavia by the shoulder. “Who?” he demands again. “Who was she after? Where was she going?”

“She was on her way to Medical,” says Miller, elbowing through the crowd to join them. “She was looking for Abby.”

Marcus feels his heart drop into his throat.

“Kane, I won’t let her get away with this,” says Kara fiercely, squeezing his forearm, indignant on her friends' behalf. “I promise.”

“You’re not going to be fighting her,” he says. “I am.”

“Bad idea,” says Miller firmly. “You’re too pissed right now. She’s in your head.”

“I can take her,” Kara insists.

“I know you can,” Marcus says. “But you shouldn’t have to. This is my fight.”

Octavia seizes him abruptly by the elbow and pulls him away, out of earshot from the crowd and the two fighters in the ring. “This is law enforcement,” she says curtly. “Not personal vengeance.”

“I understand that.”

“Then it shouldn’t matter which Champion goes up against which criminal.”

“I know that.”

“Is this about proving something to Azgeda? Fight her fairly, and they’ll realize you aren't Pike?”

“If she challenges me and I don’t fight, Octavia, they’ll say it's because I was too cowardly to face her.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I need them to know I’m not fucking around,” he hisses furiously. “I need them to know that I take this seriously. I need them to respect me.”

“You mean you need them to be _afraid_ of you,” she says, nodding, like he’s confirmed something she already knew. “Yeah, that's the old Marcus Kane I remember.”

He recoils from this like she’s slapped him in the face. “This isn’t the same,” he says quietly. “The man I was before. The Kane you knew on the Ark. The one who lived by the law, who never let himself feel anything, never let himself care about people. The Kane who floated your mother." She looks away. "Octavia," he says softly, "I’m not that man anymore.”

“Feeling too _much_ can be just as dangerous, Kane."

He nods, unable to deny the truth of this. “If you order me not to fight, I won’t,” he says. “I’ll walk away right now.”

Octavia sighs heavily. “And you'll go upstairs and climb into bed next to Abby, and you’ll lie awake all night thinking about how someone made an attempt on her life and there was nothing you could do about it, and if it happens again you’ll never forgive yourself.” She scrubs her hands wearily over her face. “You better not lose,” she says finally. “Just kick her ass hard enough to _end_ this, okay? I can’t have an out-and-out Azgeda rebellion on my hands.”

“You won’t,” he says, gripping her shoulder and meeting her eyes soberly. “Thank you, Octavia.”

“Tomorrow I’ll start posting extra guards outside Medical,” she says, leading him back to the crowd. “I know their training is coming along, but I don’t want to put it to the test this early.”

Then she steps into the ring, and the whispering crowd falls silent.

“You are Wonkru, or you are the enemy of Wonkru,” she declares. “My Champions represent the best of us. They fight for me. They fight for us. They are just and loyal, and they are not swayed by petty infighting and clan loyalties. But some among you,” she adds, casting a cold eye at Zora, “have refused, even after three years in this bunker, to let the past go. Some of you continue to insist upon drawing lines of conflict where there are none. This will not stand.”

She takes the sword from Kara and holds it out to Kane, who steps into the ring to receive it from her. The crowd begins to buzz with electricity as he turns to face Zora.

“I accept your challenge,” he says. “For the sake of seeing justice done. And to show you that I am capable of offering you a fair fight, even though your crime was committed against someone I love. Justice,” he says, turning to look at Octavia, “is not the same as vengeance.”

Octavia nods at this, and gives him a faint smile.

“Warriors, take your places,” she commands, and Zora moves to the far end of the ring, sword in hand, poised to fight.

Octavia walks Marcus to the other side of the ring. “Want me to hold so you can go put on some armor?”

“She doesn’t have any,” he points out. “If I’m more protected than she is, they’ll use it to say I had an unfair advantage.”

Octavia considers this. "Okay," she finally says. "Can you fight barefoot?"

“I think so.”

"Then you should be dressed as simply as she is," she agrees. "If you’re just in your shorts and nothing else, they won’t be able to say you were concealing any weapons, or that you were better protected. And these are a liability,” she adds, indicating his belt loops and the cargo-style pockets on his thighs. “She’ll use any advantage she has to knock you off balance.”

“Are you . . . ordering me to take my pants off?” he repeats incredulously, causing the girl's commanding presence to disappear entirely for a moment, replaced with a very nineteen-year-old giggle.

“Don’t tell Abby,” she quips. “She’ll kill me.”

“I don’t imagine we will be able to keep it a secret,” he sighs, removing his jacket.

“Unless you're worried about –" she starts to say, then changes her mind, cheeks burning again, and busies herself with passing his boots and clothing to one of the guards for safekeeping.

He doesn’t answer her, but as he unzips his pants and steps out of them, now clad only in a pair of black cotton shorts, it’s all he can think about.  
_  
Yes. I’m worried that my dick will get hard while I’m fighting, and they will all see it, and this time you will see it, and none of you will look at me the same way ever again._

“I’m not worried about anything,” he lies smoothly, returning to his corner, sword in his hand. “It’s going to be fine.”

“First blood better be a _lot_ of blood,” she mutters as she pats his back and departs. “I mean it. Get Ice Nation back in line for me, Kane. Shut this down.”

“I will,” he says, and then she raises her hand, gives the signal, and Zora charges towards him.

He meets her easily, blade clanging against blade, and anticipates every movement before she makes it. Miller might have had a point that Zora could get in his head, but he’s in hers too, and she’s having a harder time letting it go than he is.

“Your technique has improved, _Skaigona,”_ she spits as they parry in the center of the ring.

“Thank you. How are your hands?”

_“Jok of,”_ she retorts curtly.

“Just trying to be polite,” he says, as he ducks under her blade and swings behind her, aiming for the back of her calf, to knock her down. But she’s too quick, and her sword reverberates off his, and suddenly they’re standing mere inches apart, blade against blade, each of them straining with every muscle in their body to push the other one off balance.

They're so close he could lean forward, through the X of their steel blades, and kiss her mouth.

His cock begins to pulse and swell inside the thin cotton of his shorts, and he can feel every bead of sweat trailing down his bare chest.

“I hope you are enjoying yourself, _jusjoka,”_ she says softly. “I hope that your _pisa_ is nice and hard for everyone to see when they carry you out of the ring on your back. It is your last battle. You should enjoy it.” She steps back, abruptly, and the sudden release of pressure, of straining his whole upper body to push against nothing, sends him stumbling forward, caught off-guard, and the whole crowd gasps as her blade swings up to press against his throat. “You will die in this arena tonight, Markus kom Skaikru,” she hisses. “I have waited six months for this.”

Marcus looks at Octavia, eyes pleading with her, but she does not intervene. She has heard nothing Zora said. She believes, as the crowd does, that this is posturing. This is theatre. If Zora draws blood from Kane’s throat, even the tiniest drop, she forfeits the match and will be punished.

No one, not even a criminal, would be so bold as to slit a Champion’s throat in front of witnesses.

_“Yu gonplei ste odon,”_ Zora whispers, and he feels the steel press into his skin.

* * * * * *

Things happen very quickly after that, and there is much of it that Marcus does not remember.

As he shivers in their bed, scrubbed clean and wrapped in a blanket, Abby sits beside him and strokes his hair as people come in and out of the room, and bit by bit she stitches together the rest of the story.

* * * * *

Miller remembers the moment he realized it was a setup. Only four guards on duty, armed with nightsticks (firearms are banned near the ring), and they're easily overpowered once two dozen Azgeda warriors surge out of the crowd to form a human wall, blocking anyone from getting into the ring. He tries to slip away to ring the alarm and bring more guards from the barracks, with rifles; but Sangedakru - led by the burly fighter who was Kane's first public defeat - have struck an unexpected allegiance with Ice Nation. Every exit is blocked. The crowd is trapped, and he feels them begin to panic, and knows this is about to become a riot.

Kara is the only one facing Kane head-on, the only one who sees the flash of red as the blade nicks his throat, and that's how she realizes Zora walked into the ring today to die. She's _boasting_ now, breaking the law for the hell of it, drawing first blood illegally just to rile the crowd. "She's going to kill him!", she screams to Octavia, but over the chaos, Octavia doesn't hear.

Everyone agrees, without reservation, that he acted only in self-defense. "She may be dead," says Octavia, "but he isn't a murderer. You're going to have to keep telling him that, until he believes it."

* * * * *

These are the things that Marcus tells her later, the bits and pieces she helps him reassemble as the fog clears from his mind.

He remembers seeing Octavia shoved to the ground, he remembers the wall of Azgeda bodies closing in, and he realizes that no one is coming to save him. He is the only person, now, who can end this. The only person who can save his own life.

He remembers stomping down hard on the bones of her foot with his heel, hearing a satisfying crunch, and elbowing her in the gut with all his strength. It's not enough to disarm her, but it buys him enough room to duck out from beneath her blade and get free.

“Drop your weapon,” he says. “You’ll go to the brig for a few days, probably, for drawing first blood on my throat, but that’s your only crime so far. It could all end right here, Zora. Put the sword down.”

Zora laughs and launches herself at him, blade meeting his with a deafening clang, over and over again. “You think I am frightened by your threats? No, I will not be setting foot in any Skaikru prison. That is not how this ends."

Nobody - neither Marcus nor anyone else - sees the other blade until it's too late. They would have patted her down before letting her in the ring, says Kara, she can't have had it on her then. At some point, during the chaos, someone from the crowd must have slipped Zora a knife, which she probably tucked into her waistband to conceal it until she was ready, but all of this is conjecture.

Jackson is the one who performs the autopsy, who extracts the weapon and examines it. It would have taken her months, he says, to shape a piece of scrap metal into that nasty, jagged, sawed-off blade. This was premeditated. She was never going to let Kane live. She was only biding her time until her hands were healed enough to wield a sword again.

Marcus does not know this then. All he knows is that a flash of metal appears in her other hand out of nowhere, and he realizes there is no way out. This was over before it started.

“Please don’t make me do this,” he implores her. “I don’t want to do this.”

“I think you do, _jusjoka,”_ she hisses. “I think you have dreamt of this.”

With that, she kicks him in the chest so hard he flies backward, sword clattering to the floor.

She follows him, so close he can smell her moonshine breath, and his entire world shrinks down to the size of her left hand and the palm-sized blade inside it, and they drop to the ground together.

* * * * * *

The doctor in Abby reacts as swiftly as the lover does, and for a long moment, as she rushes to his side, as she frantically examines him for visible wounds, they’re working at cross-purposes.

One voice, cool and clinical, says _He’s steady on his feet, he isn’t pressing into his abdomen, some of the blood is dried already, which means it isn’t flowing from a still-open wound._

The other voice, heated and urgent and desperate, cries _No, no, no, I can’t lose you, I can’t do this again, I can’t watch you die in front of me._

He stands in the doorway, trembling, and lets her touch him all over, checking his organs, feeling the back of his head beneath his matted hair. Nothing except a ghost of a slash across his throat, far too slight to have caused all this damage.

The blood isn’t his.

“Okay, baby,” she murmurs, voice low and gentle, like she’s trying to soothe a frightened wild animal. “We need to get you washed up, okay? Can you walk with me to the showers?”

“I killed someone,” he chokes out again, like it’s the only thing he can say. “She’s dead. I killed her. I didn’t mean to.”

“Who, baby? What happened?”

“It was in the ring, we were in the ring, she was – I couldn’t . . . Abby, I swear I didn’t mean to, but she was going to hurt you, and I – and I –"

“It’s going to be okay,” she tells him firmly, cradling the side of his face, traces of crimson staining her fingertips when she pulls his hand away. “Come with me, we’re going to get you cleaned up.”

He follows, wordless, docile, and she can feel his whole body shaking.

The showers for the Champions’ quarters are only a few steps away. Unlike the rest of Wonkru, who share vast industrial shower rooms for a dozen at a time, up here they at least have a modicum of privacy, with three small stainless steel shower rooms, each the size of a large closet. Abby leads Marcus inside one of them and turns the water on to let it heat up. Steam fills the tiny chamber, gently filtered upward through a ceiling fan, as she pulls a heap of faded towels out of a steel cupboard and hangs them on the hook, then tugs off her cotton nightgown to hang beside it.

“Honey," she says again, "please tell me what happened."

“We were in the ring. She wanted to kill you. I told Kara to let me fight, but I – it wasn’t supposed to –" He breaks off, shaking his head like he’s trying to clear the thoughts out of it, and she wraps her arms around his waist.

“It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs. “Marcus, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I promise. You’re safe. Tell me who it was. _Who_ wanted to kill me?”

“She had a second knife –"

“Who did, Marcus?”

“Zora,” he croaks out, finally meeting her eyes, guilt and grief and pain and rage tangled up in his dark eyes. “She was coming to Medical today. To . . . to hurt you. They stopped her. That’s why she was in the ring. That’s why I couldn’t let Kara do it.”

Abby doesn’t like the part of herself that can’t feel any sympathy for a dead Ice Nation criminal who’d tried to kill both of them in one day.

She also doesn’t like the part of herself that goes shivery all over at the thought of Marcus in the ring, savage and bloody and beautiful, battling for her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry . . .”

He’s circling a panic attack, she thinks. Hot water will help.

“Baby, I need you to take your shorts off, okay? We’re going to get into the shower. I’m going to help you get cleaned up.”

Marcus doesn’t move.

“That’s okay,” she says quickly, “that’s okay, I can do it. Here. It’s okay.” She peels the blood-soaked fabric off his hips to gently tug it to the floor, but it catches, and with a flush she realizes why.

His cock is _desperately_ hard.

It’s flushed a deep ruddy purple, precum seeping out of the slit, and the moment his body is bared to her it’s the only thing she can see. She sinks to her knees to caress it lightly with her fingertips, feeling that dark, wicked hunger begin to sweep through her at the sight of the red smears all over his flesh where Zora’s blood has soaked through the fabric.

_For God’s sake, don’t do this,_ shouts the voice of reason in the back of her mind, but she can’t stop herself, opening her lips to take him into her mouth.

He groans, low and shaky and desperate, shivers running through his whole body, as she licks the coppery tang of blood from his cock, mixed with the warm musk flavor of his own body and the salt-bitter sharpness of his precum. It tastes like dark sorcery, drinking the blood of their enemy while she soothes and pleasures the man she loves, terrible and glorious at the same time, and she feels electricity pulse through her veins and kindle a blaze inside her cunt as Marcus’ breath comes faster and faster.

He doesn’t respond to her the way he usually does, doesn’t caress her hair or say her name or reach down to cup her cheeks in his hands and tilt her head up to meet his gaze to smile affectionately down at her. He just stands there, trembling, rocking lightly back and forth into her mouth, letting her warm wet mouth hold him close, letting her tongue bathe his shaft with gentle, tender strokes until she has licked him clean.

When she rises back up to her feet and cups his jaw in her hands, his eyes meet hers and she sees the same dark electricity surging inside them that she can feel inside herself, and when his lips crash against hers, she sighs into his mouth with relief.

That she can meet him here.

That she can give him this.

That nothing, not even death, can dim the blinding light of this love.

Abby can feel a few droplets of warm water against her back, but they’re standing away from the spray, and she suddenly realizes she doesn’t want him to be clean just yet, and he doesn’t either. Because it seems to intoxicate him, pulling her bare body against his own as his tongue sweeps fiercely into her mouth, and then pulling away to rake his eyes greedily over the ruddy stains his skin has left on hers.

She presses against him, moving, writhing, letting the peaks of her nipples trace lines along his chest, pressing him back against the wall, taking as much of the crimson from his body onto her own as she can, and she feels the panic recede from his body as Zora’s blood stains Abby’s hands and belly and breast – as though by halving the physical traces of the trauma he endured, she has taken away half its weight.

“Tell me what it was like,” she murmurs into his ear as he reaches two reddened hands down to cup the creamy swell of her ass, pulling her close until his cock is pressed upright between his belly and her cunt. He groans and moves against her, shuddering as the silken wetness of her labia brushes his shaft. “You’re safe, baby. It’s just you and me. I want to know what you felt. I want to know everything.”

“There’s so much I don’t remember,” he whispers. “It was like I woke up, suddenly, and we were on the ground together, fighting over the knife.” He shudders, and it’s part revulsion, part remembrance of fear, but partly something else, too. “She knows what I am,” he breathes. “What _we_ are. They have a word for people like us. People who are . . . like this. She knew, she’s always known, and she wanted to . . . to use it, to throw me off balance.”

Abby kisses her way up his neck, fingernails scratching lightly up and down his chest. “That’s good, baby, keep going,” she says, “tell me everything you remember.”

“She moved her thigh between mine,” he chokes out, eyes closing at the memory, head sinking back against the wall. “On purpose. To let me feel it. To make me hard. And fuck, it felt so good, Abby, I felt so alive, I kept thinking of you, I felt so much power rushing through me, I thought I could do anything, I thought I was stronger than she was, I thought I could pin her down and end this and then you would be safe, but then she broke free, she tried to stick the knife into my ribs, I almost didn’t see it . . .”

“It’s okay, baby,” she croons gently, stroking his blood-streaked hair, his clenched jaw, resting her head against his shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re safe. She didn’t hurt you. You’re safe.”

“I caught her wrist, I pushed her away, as hard as I could but I, her wrist snapped back, I pushed too hard, the knife went into her, but I didn’t know, I didn’t see, I thought she had dropped it, I thought it was over, and I didn’t . . . I didn’t get up, I didn’t call for help, I didn’t even try to save her, I could have tried to save her, if I’d known she was bleeding out, but I didn’t see, I didn’t know she was dead until her thigh stopped moving on my cock . . .”

He’s crying now, eyes tightly closed, tears carving clean trails of skin through the dried blood on his cheeks, and she circles her arms around his neck and pulls his head down to hers and opens her thighs and takes him inside of her.

“No,” he says brokenly, “no, I don’t deserve it, I don’t –"

“Hush, baby,” she murmurs, cradling him to her chest, and he dissolves into her, collapsing against her small frame until she is holding all his weight, and she lets him back her against the warm metal wall, and finally, finally, he lets go.

They fuck hard and deep and slow, for a long, long time. It’s usually fast and wild, after, it’s usually a desperate rush to slake a burning need before they fall apart, but this time it’s different. Marcus drives into her with brutal force, thrusting up and up until her feet lift off the shower floor, until she wraps both thighs around him to hold him closer. He hammers into her, harder, harder, harder, and she strokes his hair and kisses his forehead and murmurs, “yes, baby, let it go, give all of it to me, it’s okay now, you’re safe.”

When he comes inside her, it erupts with such force that it carries her over the precipice with him, and for a long, long time, they just clutch at each other, shaking, gasping, stained in cum and blood, until the ground is solid beneath them once more and they return to earth.

Then, and only then, does Abby gently take his hand and lead him under the gentle spray of the shower.

It’s entirely silent for a long, long time, save their heavy, labored breathing, the gentle splash of water against skin, and the rhythmic plink of reddened droplets trailing down his body to pool on the floor. She begins with his hair and face, tilting his head back, and he closes his eyes as warm crimson water trails down his forehead and jaw and brow and throat, like a grim and hideous baptism, over and over and over until the rivulets glittering down his cheekbones and throat run clear.

“There you are,” she murmurs, pressing a soft kiss on his clean pink mouth, running her fingers through his damp hair. “There you are. I see you.”

“Abby . . .”

“It’s okay,” she says. “Come here.”

Then she wraps her arms around him and they stand together under the hot spray, and Marcus drops his head to Abby’s shoulder and begins to weep, his tears pooling with the blood-stained water until finally all of it is washed away.

* * *

  **vii: _sleep no more_**

Everything changes, after the Azgeda rebellion.  
  
Zora is the first criminal to be executed in the ring, but she is not the last.  
  
It begins as a pragmatic solution to an urgent law enforcement problem: there isn’t enough room in the brig. At least fifty people from two different clans participated in the attempted assassination of Octavia’s Skaikru champion, and she cannot let this stand.  
  
The solution, she decides, is a conclave.  
  
They enter the ring, twelve at a time. No Champions. No first blood. Just twelve criminals, fighting to the death. The survivor may petition for the right to rejoin Wonkru, if he proves himself, or he may be sent to the brig, but either way, he will not die.  
  
Marcus is alarmed by this development, as are the rest of the Champions. It was possible to keep a degree of control over the fights – to say nothing of the frenzied blood-lust of the crowd – by adhering to a clear set of laws about how much violence is acceptable and how much verges on barbaric. He is less resistant than he once was to the notion of the Champions serving as executioners – could, if persuaded it was the only option, fight a criminal to the death again – if the rules were fair.  
  
But the conclaves are madness.  
  
It does not help that the crowd likes them better than anything else they have ever seen in the fighting pits. After the opportunity to witness eleven deaths in one bout, Marcus insists to Octavia, it will never be possible to walk them back from the edge, return to the genteel recreational bouts where first blood is determined by scratches that heal in minutes.  
  
“We only have two more years down here,” he tells her. “What will become of these people once the bunker opens and we have to build a society again?”  
  
“Then you tell me what to do with fifty-three prisoners and a brig with eight cells in it,” she says pointedly. “I’ll take any better idea you’ve got, Kane. I’m not kidding.”  
  
And he tries, he really does.  
  
He tosses and turns all night, sometimes waking Abby at three, four, five in the morning to ask her if there’s a way to monitor surface radiation levels, if he thinks a dormitory could be converted to a brig with additional security measures. By day he’s pale, distracted, restless, and at night he doesn’t sleep.  
  
Weeks go by.  
  
Finally, one day, he walks into the office and sits down on the sofa across from Octavia, elbows braced on his knees, head in his hands.  
  
“Just until the rebellion is put down,” he says. “Until Azgeda and Sangedakru are back under control. We can’t use the conclaves for anything else.”  
  
“I promise, Kane,” she tells him, and means it. “Besides, what else would we ever need to use them for?”

* * * * * *

Two weeks later, Kara Cooper brings the first row of blighted crops to Octavia’s attention.  
  
Three months later, the farm is dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGEDASLENG
> 
> Skaigona = Sky Warrior  
> fisa = healer  
> jus drein, jus daun = blood must have blood  
> skai tek = Sky People technology  
> jok of = fuck off  
> pisa = cock  
> yu gonplei ste odon = your fight is over
> 
> "Jusjoka" is a word I made up for this fic; the literal translation would be "blood fucker." It's a colloquial Grounder term - and something of a slur, to Azgeda - for a warrior who is sexually aroused in battle or by the sight of violence.


	4. The Dark Year

**viii. _I have supped full with horrors_**

There are things they do not speak of.  
  
The memory of tasting it the first time. The harrowing impossibility of separating the wretched, slimy texture from the human faces they had just seen in the ring.  
  
The way Octavia disappears into herself, a wall emerging between her and all the people she used to trust. The way Gaia enables it, gives her the words, harnesses the frantic blood-lust of the crowd into something she tells herself is sacred.  
  
The way the growing number of empty chairs in the dining room make them feel.  
  
The way they hate themselves for not being able to quench their desire, even now – that they know how this conclave will end, they know what will happen to everyone who does not survive it, they know the darkness is swallowing them whole . . . yet still, every night, when the carnage is over, they lock the door and shed their clothes and make love like wild animals, biting and clawing and grunting and scratching, tangled in the bedsheets or bent over the sofa or slammed up against the wall, until they come hard enough that the fever subsides for a moment or two.  
  
But it’s never enough. It does not let them forget.  
  
It was Abby and Kara who voiced the need, Indra and Gaia who suggested the conclaves as a source, Marcus and Octavia who resisted as long as they could before giving in; but in the end, it was clear to all of them that unity had never mattered more. They were in this together.  
  
This is the only comfort Marcus and Abby have to hold onto – that there is no distance between them, even as they feel Octavia pulling away.  
  
Surely, they tell themselves, once the farm is restored, this will stop.  
  
Bellamy and Raven will be back by the end of the fifth year. Clarke is out there somewhere too. The ground will be safe again. Someone will come and open the bunker door, and let the light back in, and all of this will be over, and Octavia will return to herself, and Wonkru’s zeal for death will fade, and life will return to normal.  
  
It must.  
  
It must.  
  
It must.

* * *

**ix.** **_what’s done cannot be undone_**

It was stupid. He knows that now.

Hope is so dangerous, down here.

But it had felt like a kind of miracle, the farm finally blooming into bounty, enough to feed them all, just as they turned the page on the calendar to the fifth year since Praimfaya. It had felt like a sign. This is their last year in the bunker – Clarke and Bellamy will come for them soon, it could be a matter of mere months, now – and they have protein crops again, so the grisly alternative the Dark Year forced on them is over.

It could be a fresh start, he told himself over and over, but he knows now it isn’t true.

They may have a thriving harvest again – and plenty to go around, with so many empty chairs in the dining hall, so many dormitories dwindled down to half-full, so many absent faces. (Ironic, to spend an entire year starving and now have more food than they can eat.) But the naïve faith he once held that restoring the farm would restore Octavia has been ground into dust.

He tells her there is no need to maintain the conclaves, no need for capital punishment. For better or worse, the Dark Year stamped out all traces of rebellion. All the clans are with her now. She got her wish, five years too late; finally, they see themselves as one.

United by a shared year of hell.

But this new Octavia – Blodreina, the crimson-smeared cult goddess, a cold, blank statue on her steel throne – has no interest in returning to the past. Her people crave blood sport. Giving it to them keeps them in her sway. Why does she need Champions, when a legion of worshipful guards obey her every whim, when the threat of being thrown into the fighting pits has silenced all dissent?

The council is long since disbanded; Miller, Niylah and Gaia have her ear, but no one else. Not Kara, unless she is bringing a report on the farm. Not Indra, unless she is training more soldiers. Not Abby, unless there is a medical emergency.

And not Marcus, for anything.

She finally managed to bring Wonkru together, and all it cost her was everything else that mattered.

They incinerate the bodies, now, instead of chopping them up; but other than that, everything is the same.


End file.
